THE RED MEN AND THE RAIN

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

THE RED MEN AND THE RAIN

SYMBOLS AND CEREMONIES.

CHANTING AND DRUM-BEATING.

The red-skinned Indians of the United States on whose lands oil was discovered may ride about in limousines and adopt all the white man’s expensive habits, but the poorer Indians still cling to many of their old traditions and customs (says the Children’s Newspaper.) If the wealthy and more sophisticated Indian’s crops are suffering from an extended drought, as they have suffered in many parts of the United States this year, he will employ white experts to provide irrigation,, but not so his less advanced red brothers.

The more primitive Indians do not look to the white man but back to their ancestral customs for assistance. It must be admitted that the result is not so successful on the whole, but it is far more picturesque. THE MASTER-KEY OF LIFE. In Western America the desert-like areas in which certain Indian tribes have made their homes for centuries have always, had a scarcity of rainfall. Of course this has resulted in rain becoming looked upon as the master-key of life by these red men, who have, developed solemn and elaborate ceremonies for the bringing of the lifegiving rain. ■ ■■■■': . Not only are these ceremonies performed during the growing seasons but the sacred symbols of the rain-makers are used in much Indian ornamentation. There are the joyful frogs on the pottery water-jugs, symbolising the . freeing _of the animals and crops from hibernation by the rain. Everyone who has seen Indian rugs Imows the frequent use of lightning in the design of the wonderful Navajo rugs symbolising plentiful rain. The thunder bird, one of gods to whom they pray for rain, is often used in the designs of silver bracelets and other Indian jewellery.

Indian maize, still one of the chief

articles of food among the westerx tribes, is planted in shallow holes by the Indians and carefully watered by hand. When the maize grows too large for this feeble watering system the com must have rain or die. Then it is, about the middle of July, that the rain-makers of the tribe are summoned. A serious religious ceremony follows. The ceremony used to be performed before a shrine to which the people had previously, brought prayer sticks with , offerings tied ’to them. Recently an Indian chief and his assistant performed their ceremony in a city street of Omaha, Nebraska, careless of the gaze of white men, who were once rigidly excluded from their tribal ceremonies. * Clad in a fringed costume of soft white buckskin, with decorations of rain and other symbols and a fine headdress of the sacred eagle feathers, Chief Whirling Eagle appeared. With him was Na-Ba-Doo, in leggings, buckskin- shirt, ceremonial blanket, and tuft of feathers, \ to beat the tom-tom and chant the / prayers while he danced. .. CHANT TO A TOM-TOM.

Rhythmically, on not more than four or five notes, Na-Ba-Doo chanted something like this:

White floating clouds, Clouds like the plains, Come and water the Earth. Sun embrace the Earth That she may be fruitful. Warriors of the six mountains of the world Intercede with the cloud people for us That they may water the Earth.

And as he solemnly chanted to his tom-tom the chief shook his rattle, made of a dry courd filled with pebbles, and danced a stately dance of intricate steps, imploring the thunder bird to bring rain to the dry land and end the scorching drought that was shrivelling up the maize.

For a day this drum-beating, dancing, and tuneless chanting of prayers for rain goes steadily on. In the evening the tribe gathers around for a joyous feast, and on the days following they sit back and watch for the rain which they are sure their pleas will bring if the thunder bird has been pleased with them. If not they must make sacrifices.